The Chair Is Empty 2025

The Chair is Empty is a card-based game about political tensions and power vacuums, for 3 or more players.

This is a much cleaned-up and streamlined version of Caudillo, a power politics game placed in a thinly disguised post-Chavez Venezuela which I first designed in 2013 (before Chavez was post-Chavez). It is basically similar in its semi-cooperative and semi-competitive nature, and it plays up the constant tension between these urges. As players vie to create the largest and most durable personal power base (scored periodically throughout the game), the card deck delivers more and more crises that players must deal with collectively (and collect small rewards immediately), or the accumulated penalties will collapse the whole house. Coups d’etat provide another quick way to score, and the office of El Presidente has its own perks too.

The free PnP version consists of 108 cards, 88 counters, and the usual rules and play aids. Several variants are supplied, including a 2-player version and a "Gringo" variant where an invisible player piggybacks their way to power.

—description from the designer